Production Notes 1

Production Notes

Keep up to date on what we are doing, even when we run silent.

It’s been a tough month. Aside from our apartment being in renovation mode (re-piping) so all our furniture and stuff from the bathroom, hall, foyer and half the kitchen being crammed into our living room and studio spaces, I was struck down by a flu, followed immediately by a pretty bad cold. All of that is coming to an end, but it’s left me in a bit of a crunch time. We also had Fan Expo in there. It’s not our favourite convention by any stretch but we get a lot of social media interaction after that convention that makes any of the frustrations worth it. Vancaf is coming up soon, which IS our favourite con. It’s actually the only con that really CLICKS for us. We don’t have the means to run off the to USA or Toronto for other conventions.

Hello, Albertosaurus

I missed one week posting but back to regularly scheduled posts! I’m really loving the scenery in it. We’re up to Page 6 of 14 pages for Chapter 4. I only have layouts done up to half way through chapter 5 so I guess once “one flew over” is done (see below) I’ll be doing that in the spare time between hello, Albertosaurus pages. It takes me roughly 9-10 hours per comic page (from sketch to lettering) so when I also work a 40 hour a week job it takes its share of my “free” time.

One Flew Over

Pages in progress

This is the comic I am drawing, written by Jason Wilkins (a writer I enjoy working with a great deal!) is for Cloudscapes second volume of Epic Canadiana. I am lucky enough that I got to work on the same characters/ story arc as in the first issue and its been great. the story is awesome so I’m really keen to do a decent job. More motivation came with the arrival of my Eon Comic boards which are luscious to work on. A little pricier when you factor in the shipping costs but worth it given that I enjoy working on them so much, especially with ink.

I’ve got the layouts done on this and I’m working on Pencils. It’s due May 1. I think I can get all the art done by then but I’m a little worried about getting the lettering and stuff done by then. Time will tell. I’m going to try to spread Hello, Albertosaurus out through the weekdays (after work) to fit in more One Flew Over on weekends.

Epic Canadiana 2: Ghost Woman

Preview panel

Cheese the ink bottle tipper

I’ve been using mostly a quill

Sometimes I use a brush too

I am running a bit behind with this one, it’s due May first and I’ve one just begun inking. Our Kitten cheese also knocked over my bottle of new ink I was going to try out, luckily I had some spare Winsor and Newton and Speedball ink hanging around.

Extinct Animal Painting Series

Dodo and other artwork currently on display at Deserres

I’ve completed the Dodo and it is currently on display in the front window of Deserres (Art Store) on Broadway (1431, West Broadway, Vancouver). The Dodo was painted on Hot Pressed Fabriano paper and inked with Deleter waterproof ink using a Quill pen.

Right now, I am creating a painting of a Thylacine pair, which is my favorite animal. I am using hot pressed fabriano paper again and Winsor and Newton artists quality watercolours because I liked using the quill pen to ink and I want the series to all look similar. Quill inking does not work well on Soft and Cold Pressed Paper.

One of the challenges of this painting series is finding accurate information on the environment and original habitat of these animals. The information tells you where the animal lived, but images of that area from the time they were alive isn’t available. What you get is modern images which in the case of the Dodo’s natural habitat is now all beach resorts, and I am sure a flightless bird didn’t spend time rolling on a beach.

Completed ink of Thylacine pair, ready to paint!

I often will print multiples of the sketch and test value and colours with markers or watercolour

The first splashes of paint!

In progress inking with light pad and quill pen

Most up to date of progress: most base colours are in and I’ve started shading

Original half completed sketch

Daqueran

Fret not Daqueran fans, it is not forgotten, once the Epic Canadiana comic is over I will be doing Daqueran again. I even have some progress for you as I have been thumb-nailing pages! ITS TRUE! I’ll even show you a page of thumnails! I will be happy to finish this story finally, but it doesn’t mean I dont have plans for these characters to come back in additional short comics or something.